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A Challenge for the Future

Academic Community in Asia-Pacific

by the SCM of Sri Lanka

It is simple truth that there is a social, political and economic transition taking place in the Asia-Pacific region. This is not isolated in or peculiar to this region alone. It can be argued that this is another stage in the process of universal (or social) evolution. While these changes can be looked at positively by analysing the situation from a totally optimistic perspective, it could also be viewed negatively as changes that have really happened and yet need not have happened.

It could be said that the dynamics have not been instantaneous or unnatural but have occurred and are occurring in the course of a process. The changes could also be understood in an evolutionary context, where the political, social and economic processes move forward in a continuous programmed method and are seen on the surface as economic, environmental, democratic, antidemocratic, spiritual and cultural factors. And while some would take these changes as bringing about a better society within a socio-democratic set-up, still others would hold different views.

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A Two-fold Challenge for

the Academic Community

What is the primary challenge of the academic community in the Asia-Pacific region? There is a two-fold challenge as we confront the 21st Century. One aspect of the challenge is the problems arising from

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external pressures also known as foreign pressures. The other aspect of the challenge is the problem of how our national intellectuals confront the internal power structure.

The Asia-Pacific is the under-developed region burdened with problems pertaining to politics and human growth. How the world changes and affects us, and how we should make such changes beneficial to us is the problem. The national leaders respond to these in various ways, mainly in the interest of their own survival. The pressures from outside are not monolithic.

As an illustration, Sri Lanka faces pressure related to world capitalist system. Then there are the pressures generated from international civil organizations, human rights movements, academic communities, radical movements which are all at variance with one another. In this way double pressures are brought on us and we have to distinguish between friend and foe. It is also not in our interest to free ourselves from international influences. But at the same time our society should possess the ability to recognise the ropes thrown to us by our rulers.

In this way the society of the 21st century has become complex. Society's challenge is the development of its people. How could prosperity be brought to humankind? How could society be more peaceful and how could society be developed to become more people-centered? This does not mean that we should develop market and state institutions. What is being developed is the army and the Buddhist places of worship (other religions also carry out such projects although these do not come within the sphere of national projects).

But no attempt is made to develop people. People are used as mere raw material for the development of other things. We need people to build the nation. We need people to develop state institutions. The argument should not be that state institutions are necessary to develop people. How can we do this under the new politico-socio-economic order? The challenge to the academic community is to analyse and identify these matters, mobilise the resources and discover the solutions.

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Who Will Respond to the Challenge?

Who are the intellectuals or the academics who will rise up to this challenge? In our country, the term academic community itself is a confusing one. We have persons who are independent intellectuals. But they are alone with themselves. Their independence is questioned because it is solitary independence. They live within the community but are incapable of developing or securing their independence collectively. We do not say that this is the fault of the individual.

In the final analysis the question would be: how much resources can be allocated? How much of a resource surplus does society possess? The epistemology of (the university) intellectual is weak. This is because a majority of the intellectuals have subjected their duties as intellectuals to other social concerns as family, religion and cultural traditions.

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What is the Academic Community

What is the academic community? One definition would include only those who have obtained certificates from academic institutions. A better definition however would also include individuals who may not possess such university documents.

An intellectual generation was born in the period of the 19th and 20th centuries. They were brought up on Marxist or socialist molds, class struggles and social movements which had a direct relevance to society. All of them did not come from the universities, but formed an academic community with a responsibility towards society. They had a job to perform.

At the time we won independence from Britain this community developed and existed for some time. This was an unavoidable trend. It was nationalism against the common foe which was colonialism. But later on, nationalism took a different meaning in the agenda of the socialist parties.

The intellectuals of these socialist parties who had received their education abroad had, on their return, got involved in party politics and therefore their thinking became

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confined to the party agenda. Outside the official academic tradition was the simple tradition of the party.

Those who were outside this simple tradition developed into an atomic academic generation who shed their responsibility to society. The others absorbed all the changing knowledge of the world into a communalist frame. The results were disastrous. Political parties outside the universities nurtured and operated student organisations which in turn displayed the internal and external natures of the leftist political parties. Some followed communalist trends and the others followed communist concepts. No intellectual study was conducted regarding changing world trends and this blocked avenues of agreement among the parties. The positive student organisations that restricted, or were compelled to restrict their student struggles to winning the day to day rights of the university students, failed to build up an academic cluster within the university.

Another important factor is that the generation born in the seventies developed an anti-English mentality. This resulted in the students being persuaded to appreciate only indigenous cultural trends and maliciously rejected everything coming from outside the country.

But there were exceptions. Those of a certain class formed into English-educated groups. Acquisition of learning alone does not generate social responsibility. Those who gained knowledge in the universities found no social organisation to join when they left the university, and thereby lost opportunity for discovery. There are no state or private institutions with objectives of pursuing academic knowledge and the arts. Under these circumstances there exists no climate favourable to the growth of an academic community.

The tragedy with regard to the university dons is that most of them are not engaged in research or education. Most of them are not suited to their profession. Their role has been to impart ancient knowledge, the way schoolteachers do. Clearly these cannot be intellectuals.

The few intellectuals who are on the scene do not bring in positive relevance to the university community. Their research and ideologies do not reach the people. They could be compared to the non-governmental organisations whose fact finding and survey reports are not circulated among the people but only to their donor agencies. The

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gentlemen of the universities and of the NGOs are devoid of social responsibility. Their studies and discussions are held within the confines of their circles. We are compelled therefore to say that they bear no social obligations and their reports are formulated only to bring in funds.

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Conclusion: Towards Building

the Academic Communities

In conclusion, let us turn to the task of building academic clusters and communities (of a wider definition). It is a challenge for our country to create academic institutions outside the state and business sectors. Such communities have been developed over the years in Europe. They possess the necessary resources.

From recent times we too have had a few of such groups, an example of which are the editorial boards of newspapers. They perform a duty in bringing out intellectuals. The Sinhala intellectuals were the product of the written media. But these establishments were not impartial and therefore they could not become politically impartial.

The academic groups in Europe, Scandinavia and America are strong and independent. They possess the resources to stay independent of power blocs. But we are targets of power groups. Even the universities lack complete autonomy. In India, aristocratic and intellectual sectors developed academic centers along with the independence struggle. In Europe too the ancient aristocrats and the intelligentsia established universities in the 17th Century. A similar situation failed to develop in Sri Lanka.

What is important, however, is that today we could look at the situation differently. In the present age the concept of the nation state is breaking down even in Europe. The academic community becomes relevant in the context of regions and not of states. In Europe today, we cannot speak of a French intellectual community or a German intellectual community.

In Sri Lanka we still have an intellectual group operating within the confines of national projects. Therefore we are unable to carry on a dialogue with the progressive intellectuals of India. During the colonial period there was dialogue among the artists and intellectuals through

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institutions like Shanthi Niketan. However this process died out in the 1950’s.

We ought to develop institutions in the region with a capacity to mobilise resources. India seems to be an appropriate center for such an endeavour. But we have to awaken to the fact that we cannot watch and wait for the government to take the initiative.

In confronting problems pertaining to the development of human resources it is necessary that we build up vigilance to face adverse situations created by political power systems. This would be an illusion as long as we are imprisoned within state institutions.

The major task before the intellectual community in Sri Lanka is to intellectually challenge the social, economic and political forces that are opposed to human development. They have to analyse such situations and provide wisdom to the progressive forces. It is of utmost importance that we formulate a new political agenda that is sensitive to both our social, economic, political and cultural needs that have so far not been identified, as well as to international trends.